That is the relatively simple explanation for one of this season's most baffling transfers. Any number of theories have been advanced for what looked, on the surface, to be a crazy, self-destructive act by Liverpool. A clash of personalities between Fowler and his manager, Gerard Houllier, friction between Fowler and assistant manager Phil Thompson, Fowler's tendency to get into late-night scrapes: all were suggested as reasons for the eventual split.

But the truth is that, before discussing a new contract, the player sought an assurance he would begin this season as one of Liverpool's two first-choice strikers and did not get it. Much as the club wanted to keep Fowler - they were anxious to tie both him and Michael Owen to new, long-term contracts, if you recall - they felt unable to guarantee he would be given preference over Emile Heskey and Jari Litmanen in their rotation policy.

As a source close to Fowler says: "The way the side was being selected down the pecking order, it didn't look as though he was going to get a chance. So to guarantee himself regular first-team football, he had to move. If you look at any of the major games Liverpool played in, he was on the bench. So it looked as though he wasn't going to be a first choice.

"But he's not too far off 27 now and, with the World Cup coming up, he had to play games. The England coach had indicated that to him and a number of other players. A lot of them - Andy Cole, for example - found themselves in a very similar position. Robbie just wanted to play football and secure his place in the World Cup squad. So sitting on the bench, or having a restricted number of games, wasn't going to achieve that objective."

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It was not as though Liverpool went out of their way to sell Fowler to Leeds, either. Houllier and Leeds manager David O'Leary may be close friends, but that is not the main reason the deal was done. Rangers, Blackburn and Fulham had all shown interest in signing the striker regarded as the best natural finisher in English football, but the plain fact is that Leeds were the only club who came in for him with a firm, acceptable bid.

Financially, the transaction proved extremely profitable for Liverpool. At the time of the transfer, two months ago, the fee was said to be £11 million. I have it on good authority, though, that £13 million would have been nearer the mark. It was all clear profit, too, since Fowler was one of several players to have graduated from the Merseysiders' carefully cultivated, high-grade youth system into the club's first team.

Steve McManaman had been another, but Liverpool did not make a penny on him when he moved to Real Madrid on a `Bosman', so they were determined not to get caught that way for a second time. As Thompson said at the time of Fowler's move to Leeds: "This club has been hurt badly in the past when one player was out of contract and went for nothing. We vowed then that it would never happen again. Steve McManaman's departure cost us a lot of money, so we had to get as much as we could for Robbie."

It was a pressing situation for Liverpool because, sensibly, they wanted him to sign a new contract well in advance of the expiry of his existing arrangement.

But the negotiations did not get anywhere near the drawing up of a legal document. The one meeting the player had with Liverpool last summer was enough to convince him that he had to leave to further his career and then that he did not want to stay.

"People kept speculating about whether I would stay at Liverpool," said Fowler after he had reluctantly turned his back on his beloved club and city and joined Leeds. "Will he or won't he sign this new contract? Well, for me, you can't sign a new contract if it's not there in the first place. They may have been preparing one - I really don't know - but there was certainly never one on the table and no one discussed it with me."

All this, it has to be emphasised, was said with great regret and not a vestige of anger. "Please lads," said Fowler revealingly to a clutch of national newspaper journalists, "whatever you do, don't go overboard about the contract stuff. I have to go back to Liverpool. I have to say my farewells. I don't want any bad feeling."

There is every chance his wishes will be granted at Elland Road today, when Fowler opposes his old comrades for the first time. The reputation of the player known to the Kop as `God' is buried so deep in affectionate Anfield folklore that it would take a lot more than a move across the Pennines to dislodge it. The Liverpool fans may shake their heads enviously over the seven goals Fowler has scored in his 11 appearances for Leeds so far, but they would never regard that as betrayal. Nonetheless, it will hurt if he puts one, or more, past Jerzy Dudek this afternoon. Especially if Nicolas Anelka, the high-profile Frenchman who has been signed on loan from Paris St-Germain to take his place, continues to be so shot-shy. One goal in nine games has hardly helped to soothe the pain of Fowler's departure or improve the sulky one's prospects of joining Liverpool permanently at the end of the season.

It is deeply ironic, of course, that Anelka agreed to join Liverpool because he was not getting regular first-team football at PSG and wanted to improve his chances of being selected for France's World Cup squad.

Not only that, but Heskey, seemingly a certainty to be taken to Japan and Korea by England and clearly above Fowler in Liverpool's pecking order, has just succeeded in scoring for the second time in 35 - yes, 35 - games for club and country.

On second thoughts, there must be more to this than meets the eye. But perhaps we would be better off turning our attention to Manchester United's decision to sell Jaap Stam. Now there's a clear case of a football club shooting themselves in the foot, isn't it? Or is it?